A Word of Gratitude for Christmas and New Year

Dear subscribers,

The earth has completed another symbolic journey around the sun and that moment makes man look back and forward. First and foremost, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all from the bottom of my heart. When I read your comments under my substacks, I often think: how grateful I am for such intelligent and honest readers. Until now I rarely responded to the comments. Somehow I don't want some readers to feel dejected because I'm responding to other people's comments and not theirs. I may try to set aside some time in the future to respond to everyone, but I can't really promise anything. Or maybe I shouldn't worry so much and just reply to a few comments when I have a moment.

In any case, dear friends, thank you for being here and journeying with me through this remarkable time. I now often take the floor, during lectures and workshops, on social media, by writing books, in podcasts and interviews. The person speaking is usually quick to attribute the merits of speaking the words to himself. But that's not right. Without someone who listens sincerely, the words get stuck in the mouth of the speaker. The sincere listener is as necessary as the sincere speaker. Listening and speaking are both an art, an art that we must learn to master. So once again: thank you from my heart for being here the way you are.

I have also been organizing workshops on this art of speaking and listening for almost a year now. I think that art is crucial in this era, in several respects. It is the first and most fundamental art that man can practice, an art that in a sense he already practiced around the campfires of prehistoric times, and it is that art that will be decisive in the battle against the rising technocratic totalitarianism.

So far I’ve organized the workshops in Belgium and the Netherlands and next year I will also take them abroad. In that regard, I can say without any hesitation: I am extremely grateful for the process I’ve been going through this year. Together with others - especially the people who attended this year's workshops on the Art of Speech. The child has been given many names: bold speech, sincere speech, truth speech, non-violent speech, and so on.

All in all, the decision to organize these workshops was an impulsive one. I did it suddenly. And in retrospect, that decision showed a logic more perfect than I could have imagined. Man only really does something meaningful when he acts without thinking. And something similar applies to speaking: we speak our own words most when we speak without thinking, when we ourselves are a silent listener of the voice that forms in our mouth.

I have to admit, in the beginning I was sometimes a bit desperate and sometimes thought “What have I gotten myself into, I should have thought twice”. But little by little, things started to fall into place and now, a year later, I feel like the workshops have taken their first full form. I assume they will transform further with each new series.

At least I hope so. Life has no stagnation and standstill, it constantly re-invents itself. This applies in particular to the phenomenon of “truth”. “The truth is always new,” as Max Jacob said. It would be a contradiction in terms to try to pour workshops in which we together look for what it is for a human being to speak the truth into a definitive form.

That is one of the most stimulating insights that man can acquire: as his speech transforms, he transforms himself. Man is his word. The words that man speaks are the subtlest materialization of his soul. The soul slumbers, vibrates and lives in the speech that man creates. That is what the workshops are about - freeing speech from the narrow cell of the Ego and making room for the Soul to exist in our words.

This reminds me: we need a new definition of being “awake”. That word is often used within the corona-critical group to refer to themselves. But the “woke” movement actually thinks the same thing: they are “woke”. Who is actually awake now? And what does it actually mean to be awake? Here's what I think: being awake has little to do with whether or not you're vaccinated. We are only awake when we are not rocked to sleep by our own Ego.

By the way, I'm going to have a meaningful chat about that next year with Dr. Karen Hamaker-Zondag, an internationally known speaker in the field of astrology and Jungian psychology: is the Ego good or bad or somewhere between the two? Karen and I may disagree. Or maybe not. But we will certainly speak to each other. I hope that this year you will also do your best to really speak - person to person - with the people with whom you disagree. The past year has also taught us something remarkable: the “corona-critical” group has become divided by the war in Israel. I think that division is a good thing. To the extent that a group allows itself to be divided because its members have different opinions, that group is, in fact, a mass. And as such, it can't fall apart fast enough.

A real group - a real “community” - does not form around an opinion. It is formed because people love each other and talk to each other, especially where they all think and speak in their own way. If you only love the Other if he resembles you, then you do not love the Other, but your own reflection. In other words: then you are not in the register of love, but in that of narcissism.

There is something more important than our opinion, and that is our ability to be genuinely open to someone with a different opinion. Never become so sure of your own opinion that you can't find that little space of uncertainty necessary to really listen to another opinion - that's a little principle I'll pass on here, for what it's worth.

Of course, that doesn't mean our opinion isn't important. And I think there are indeed correct and incorrect opinions. About corona, and also about Israel. So this year I will not only strive for openness towards people with different opinions, but I will also (continue to) express my own opinion. If you no longer do the latter, any tribute to the importance of “openness” will be hollow and empty.

I have the feeling that I could go on like this for a while, but I'm going to leave it at this for this year and just say to you: use the new year well, use it to grow in what you essentially are: a speaking being. Some of you will be working on this very intensively in my workshops in the coming year, but there are also so many other ways to walk that same path. Wherever you go in the coming year, dear friends, walk in the direction of the words in which you hear the sound of your soul!

Mattias